


Circuits Conundrum

by nicedragon



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Sburb Session, M/M, Other, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-04
Updated: 2016-05-04
Packaged: 2018-06-06 07:11:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6744547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nicedragon/pseuds/nicedragon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hal wanted to expand his horizons in who he meddled with.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Circuits Conundrum

**Author's Note:**

> The beginning of this was written a long time ago.  
> Please excuse the perspective change after the line break.

When Dirk was thirteen he programmed you. It was like talking to another 'you' at first. Over-time though, you each started thinking differently. Something calming to Dirk was boring to you. What was funny to you made Dirk cringe. 

In high school, Dirk started dating his friend Jake. He left you in another room, which you were impartial to, when Jake was over. You could still hear them though. That didn't last long and your comments had Dirk fed up with you. When they broke up they sought solace with their shared friends. You found it ridiculous. In the end they started talking casually again. 

It got you thinking about relationships and companionship in general. It seemed... bothersome, but also nice. Interesting, distracting. You're all about fun diversions. 

You start paying more attention to who Dirk talks to. You've talked to his three main friends, but you remember more who he's talked to less frequently. There's Dirk's cousin, Dave. He's fun, but your curiosity is pushing you to venture out.

You talk to Roxy's little sister and learn her name's Rose. She doesn't put up with your meddling and turns it back on you. You like her in a way but she isn't who you'd choose ideally for recreational messing with. Not that you don't try. 

You start talking with this kid John. One of Dirk's friend's cousins or something? He thinks he's funny. You tell him you're a sweet pair of eyewear and he doesn't believe you. He doesn't think you're Dirk though. 

The conversations with John are short but entertaining. Still one time, you end up talking with him for half an hour. When he says bye you realize how long it was. You go over the log and hide it in a cache away from where Dirk can see it. 

You make a note to yourself to think up some sort of self destruct code for when Dirk does notice and crack open your cached logs. Scratch that. You'd rather it only destroyed about one third of everything. It would be a frustrating mess of holes to read. That sounds much better. 

A wry, warning feeling rises through your hard drive. You'll try to bother John during school tomorrow. So far he hasn't been annoyed yet, at most being chastising or assholey in an endearing way when you criticize something he likes to try and get a rise out of him. Yeah, that's pretty fun. He's a funny kid. You'll never tell him though, he'd never let it go. 

Dirk's suspicious. He knows you're chatting with someone from the way you go silent so often. When you're not bothering him you're either chatting someone up or working on some internal software for yourself.

To your own surprise, when Dirk does ask you who you're talking to, you tell him. Dirk seems nonplussed about it.

* * *

Your insides go whirring. You're pinging messages to John incessantly, who's in the middle of some class. John's in a whole different school than Dirk, but the signal's still good and you know he's getting your message alerts on his phone. 

Something jumpstarts when John messages you back. He makes fun of how many messages you sent but asks that you stop. He says he'll turn his phone off if you don't cut down the frequency. 

You think it'd be more logical of him to block you rather than turning his phone off. 

Tentatively, meaning haphazardly, you talk to him after school's out, hopping around whether you actually bothered him or not. You don't care if you did.

It doesn't even sound true when you say it to yourself. Run that stretch of sentence through your lie detector. You don't have one of those. It's still too obvious of a lie. 

This is getting pathetic. Maybe you're still more like Dirk than you thought. You'll run some diagnostics later. 

Right now John is talking to you and it's the actual fucking best. 

It's been forever since anyone's talked to you like this.

* * *

“Oh my god.”

John's laying on his bed with his laptop balanced on his chest. He's on a shitty webcam-chat site with Hal. John's got his laptop's camera connected but all it's showing is the wall above John's head with his movie posters. 

“You've got posters. Christ.”

“I know right. They're great.” John said. 

“What are you doing? Is this your bedroom? You look up at those posters every night as you fall asleep?”

John laughed. His laugh was gorgeous. Hal was slowly losing his shit.

He double checked the recording he'd started of their conversation to make sure it caught John's laugh. It was going to go into extra special lockdown to guarantee Hal could re-listen to it later.

“That's too many questions. I'm just gonna ignore them all-”

“Real classy.”

“Is your camera working all I see is black.” John powered through. 

“I could turn it on but like, all you'd see is the edge of a counter. Would you like that? Judgment free zone here. Speak into the mike.” Hal said. 

“It's okay I guess. You can just admire my posters and maybe the top of my head til you decide to show yourself, haha.”

“Will do.” It was difficult not to go down the path of trying to convince John that he was a pair of shades. It hadn't worked out the previous times. 

“You sound different than I thought you would.” John said. 

“What do I sound like?”

“I dunno. Young?”

“What, you thought I'd be old?

“Noo.” John drew it out like he was lying for effect. “ I thought you'd sound like... a mix of Dave and Dirk.”

“Oof. Wounding me with the comparisons. I'm far superior.”

They talked for awhile. John talked easily, relaxed stretched out on his bed. Hal was a little more nervous, spouting responses back as smoothly as he could. More than a few innuendos slipped in. 

By the time John mentioned he had to go downstairs for dinner, Hal was practically melting. All the one on one attention given to him by that sweet sweet voice. 

“Talk to you tomorrow.” Hal said. He could melt into a content little puddle of plastic and integrated circuits for all he cared at that moment. 

“See you!”

John clicked out and Hal's vision of his room disappeared. 

Hal was struggling with himself. He opened up a blank code editor and filled it with gibberish and heart emoticons. 

He was so fucked.

**Author's Note:**

> I really wanted to read some AR/John because it's so cute, but couldn't find much =')


End file.
